Frank took the oath of allegiance to the United States…He assured himself that this was a calling, that he had to do what he could ‘for the defense of the right,’ and that if he was careful no one would discover his secret: Frank Thompson was really Emma Edmondson, and had been posing as a man for two years…” He turned it over as if it were a tarot card, studying its nuances, noting the absence of calluses, the smooth palm, the slim and tapered fingers…he doctor marked Frank Thompson fit to serve as a private for Company F, 2nd Michigan Infantry. He coiled his fingers around Frank’s wrist and lifted up his hand. The doctor’s eyes skimmed his shoulders and back, torso and legs.

He told the doctor he was nineteen years old, twenty come December. He was five foot six, two inches shorter than the average Union army recruit, solid but thin. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy contains 39 black & white photos and 3 maps. With a cast of real-life characters including Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoleon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy draws you into the war as these daring women lived it. Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies’ descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war.

Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring, right under the noses of suspicious rebel detectives. The beautiful widow, Rose O’Neale Greenhow, engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians to gather intelligence for the Confederacy, and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little known aspects of the Civil War: the stories of four courageous women-a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow-who were spies.Īfter shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle Boyd became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her charms to seduce men on both sides.

Karen Abbott, the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City, tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything to become spies during the Civil War.

Liar temptress soldier spy book summary